Now it's official

Yesterday I received notification that I am officially a nursing student. Some of you might be thinking, "Wait, I thought he already was a nursing student." Well, I was officially a pre-nursing student. Lemme 'splain.

Unlike most other schools at UT, in the SoN you are classified as Pre-nursing while taking prerequisite courses for a couple years. Then, you apply to be admitted into the upper-division sequence. It's competitive and roughly 40% (at this time) of those who apply are not accepted. The average GPA of those admitted is around 3.40, so a B average is usually not good enough. The students who don't make it in have one more chance to apply the next semester, then they have to leave the school.

It's harsh, but there's only so many slots in clinical classes and they want to make sure only the students with the best prospects are taken. Also, the SoN is a top-ten nursing school and they want to stay there, so standards are high. The students who don't make it in transfer to another university or change their major.

Yes there's a nursing shortage. At this time though, the bottleneck to getting more people into the profession is not willing students so much as it is the lack of nursing faculty and the availability of clinical sites at which to study. More alarmingly, the existing nursing faculty is rapidly retiring. Which is why the UT SoN faculty are always dropping hints about students progressing through to PhD and becoming faculty themselves. I just found out that if I go right into the Masters program at UT when I finish my Bachelors, they waive the GRE requirement and the application fee.

Nifty, though I won't be doing it. Anyway, as soon as I finish this semester with Cs or better in my classes, I'm officially a nursing student. Yay.